Are aversions of "Bottomless Magazines" noteworthy?

If you search for "avert" on Bottomless Magazines, there are 123 hits. It came to my attention when somebody added such an averted example to Stranger Things:

• Bottomless Magazines: Averted. The assault rifle Chief Hopper salvages from a dead guard at the Lab fires exactly 30 rounds before running dry. His shotgun goes slightly over magazine capacity, though it could be justified as him reloading between shots.

I don't consider aversion here noteworthy. Is there a general rule for when it is and when not?

I would say that non-video game works go into the kind of continuity details of how many shots are fired in a clip and stick to it is noteworthy but I wouldnt say that aversions to Bottomless Magazines is the place for that.

Video games tend to use infinite clips but finite rounds in a clip. IE fire one shot in a 7 round mag with a 100 total ammo, reload and you have 99 rounds and such.

I wouldn't call aversions of that trope noteworthy. It happens frequently enough, with or without exact counts.

Games work on a sliding scale of ammo management, from no management to completely realistic. They're too all over the place for aversions to be notable.

The general rule is that aversions are only noteworthy for tropes so common that straight examples would not be noteworthy.

I was also about to mention Omnipresent Tropes. An aversion to this trope is not noteworthy.

That said, it may be subverted, defied, discussed, or implied and be notable. Many tropers say "averted" when they mean "defied" or "subverted."

Given the context presented in the OP's example, I'd say that is not anything notable.

Any mention or reference to a trope (which includes most forms of playing with it) automatically makes it notable, since it's explicitly noted in the work.

I wasn't trying to disagree.

edited 3rd Dec '17 10:23:31 AM by AnotherDuck

I don't see us disagreeing here. The example in OP does not explain that the 30 bullets are somehow addressed by the work as opposed to simply being in the work without mention or reference to the concept of Bottomless Magazines.

edited 3rd Dec '17 10:04:19 AM by WaterBlap

I believe playing Bottomless Magazines straight is less "disrupting" to the flow of a work than averting it. It's in the latter case when people stop and think about the trope. And that's why we end up with examples like "Bottomless Magazines was averted in such and such scene" while it was actually played straight everywhere else in the work. Or people think it's an omnipresent trope. I don't know. Is there anything we can to do counteract the collection of averted examples here?

Bottomless Magazines in most works is either Conservation of Detail, Continuity Error, They Just Didn't Care or literal Infinite Ammo.

Note: Infinite Ammo and Bottomless Magazines are WAY different things despite it being included in the same trope for some ungodly reason.

When a work goes into detail like counting bullets or showing non-plot important reloading and such is notable but it would be in something else than ‘aversions’ to above.

edited 3rd Dec '17 10:17:57 AM by Memers

I don't see how Unorthodox Reload is an aversion, despite both tropes claiming so. Bottomless Magazines doesn't preclude reloading, especially for dramatic purposes. It means there's no reloading for non-dramatic purposes. Anything that's done because it's cool is for dramatic purposes.

I also don't see a point about works averting it in one scene or something like that. It's either the entire work, or not at all.

The issue is that the trope of Bottomless Magazines is about how fiction compares to reality, not about a self-sustaining pattern like One Bullet Left (using the lack of ammo as a dramatic moment). The reason the trope exists is because the needs of fiction exceeds reality, the story needs to depict a long firefight and doesn't see a need to depict the magazine capacity realistically. A notable aversion is sort of like a commentary asking why the trope exists, such as being deathly quiet in space when normally Space Is Noisy. An aversion of Bottomless Magazines would not be about a character running out of ammo altogether (as that is a self-sustaining pattern like One Bullet Left), but showing the trope doesn't have to exist by depicting the process of reloading.

I also don't see Unorthodox Reload as an aversion. Bottomless Magazines seems to be "nobody reloads because of the drama and flow thereof" (Rule of Drama, Played for Drama?) and Unorthodox Reload seems to be "somebody reloads in a strange or interesting way because of Rule of Cool." They seem more like sister tropes under an "Artistic License - Firearms" trope.

I didn't notice before but there's the line "There's a separate 'Exceptions' subsection on the bottom of this page. Please post aversions and subversions there," at the bottom of the description. This originates from before the page's history (pre-2013). IIRC, that was a period in which we allowed aversions to be listed for non-Omnipresent Tropes. It seems this article uses "Averted Trope" in the outdated sense.

edited 3rd Dec '17 11:46:48 AM by WaterBlap

Wait, do we really have all these tropes concerning guns and ammunition, but not one for when people just plain old run out of bullets?

Well, there's this draft in the making.

Well, there might be a trope relating to trying to shoot someone, and then "click", but just running out of bullets by itself isn't a trope.

Also, a lot of those aren't actually aversions. They're dramatic reloading moments, which doesn't mean averting the trope. Essentially they're taking the trope name literally.

The second paragraph is the key part of the description, I believe. It basically says that bullets lasts exactly as long as drama mandates. Not that they're infinite (which is why Infinite Ammo should be a different trope).

edited 3rd Dec '17 3:34:15 PM by AnotherDuck

How is it not a trope? If a gunfight is going on, someone running out of bullets dramatically changes the whole course of the fight. While it can be used for different purposes (to make the person who's run out have to run away, or surrender, or resort to using a different weapon) it's always put there for a reason.

I just want to note that "nobody reloads because of the drama and flow thereof" and literal Infinite Ammo are completely different concepts and really should be different tropes.

^ I don't quite get the distinction.

^^^ I get the distinction but if you say that the second paragraph of Bottomless Magazines holds the core message of the trope, then we are in trouble because the rest of the description, the title, the image and the examples don't agree with it. They are all about literal Infinite Ammo. The aforementioned draft Dramatic Gun Failure seems to pick up where the second paragraph of Bottomless Magazines left off. It could become the trope you want Bottomless Magazines to be.

Infinite Ammo is about ammo, those will still empty clips and have to reload. Its mostly a gameplay mechanic seen in arcade-like games like Overwatch

Bottomless Magazines is about continuous fire, never reloading and never running out. This one contains the "nobody reloads because of the drama and flow thereof" aspects.

There is also overheat mechanics version of Infinite Ammo, which is shooting causes heat and you need to stop firing for a bit to cool down. Its a major component for a lot of Energy Weapons.

All 3 are extremely different tropes.

edited 3rd Dec '17 7:02:01 PM by Memers

This is going off topic. You look carefully at any trope and you can find inconsistencies or missing super tropes or sister tropes.

The original topic was if aversions of the trope are noteworthy and what, exactly, an aversion to the trope would entail. Listing an averted trope does not necessarily require an Omnipresent Trope, but clarity on what makes it a notable aversion. Especially in cases like Bottomless Magazines where it's a criticism of not being realistic to actual weapons, a notable aversion is being more realistic in how the weapons are depicted.

I do think too many examples are focused on the weapon specifics, things like counting bullets and comparing it to the actual real world weapon specs, making the argument more about semantics (they fire 24 shots before stopping when the weapon only allows 18). But I think if someone runs out of ammo only at a plot critical time that would be a subversion. Same with Unorthodox Reload, that is calling attention to the need to reload. A notable aversion of Bottomless Magazines would be regular awareness of ammo capacity without calling attention to them breaking the trend.

The rest of the paragraphs don't really describe the trope as much as present various ways it can happen. The "See also" line is in the middle of the description, rather than at the end as our standard is, so I checked with The Wayback Machine. The original doesn't have anything below that, but it still has the line about reloading is only if it's dramatic.

I disagree that running out of ammo at a plot-critical moment is a subversion. That's when you expect the gun to run out of ammo, since it makes sense dramatically.

The trope is that the guns do not run out of ammo and the characters are never shown reloading. Once the gun dramatically goes "click...click...click," no matter how much ammo is spent beforehand, that would be a subversion of the trope. So there are a number of subversions because it was seen as a perfect place for drama. Playing it straight does not account for running out of ammo or reloading ever.

That's Not A Subversion. If a gun runs out of ammunition, it's an aversion, pure and simple. Trope is not used = aversion.

A subversion occurs if the trope is set up to be used, or is used normally, until suddenly it is not, or it turns out that there was some other reason for it that no longer applies. For example, if all of the guns have Applied Phlebotinum to give them unlimited ammo, and that's not revealed to the audience until it's taken away.

A work in which guns have limited magazines, need to be reloaded, and the reloading is handled in a realistic manner, is generally Like Reality, Unless Noted and is not worthy of any sort of trope example unless it is played with in some way.

edited 4th Dec '17 11:28:38 AM by Fighteer

Please read the trope before trying to claim what how it's defined. Especially the second paragraph, which has several sentences of contrary definitions.

edited 4th Dec '17 11:28:37 AM by AnotherDuck

The second paragraph is where the description starts going on long tangents related to the main topic but not necessarily defining the trope. The trope is "never reloading/having unlimited ammo capacity" not "dramatically running out of ammo," the two things are not compatible. If there is an example of dramatically running out of ammo, but not the never reloading part I would call that not an example of the trope at all. A subverted trope requires something to be set up and then undermined, which is what is happening when you pair those two things together.

The aversion of the trope depends on how omnipresent you think the trope is. I see the trope as existing because depicting it more realistically requires a lot more effort in both the filming and editing, like Space Is Noisy. Examples of meticulous awareness of the amount of ammunition in a magazine and reloading after the proper length of fire time is so vastly outnumbered by the Hollywood version that it becomes notable. It's similar with most factual inaccuracy tropes, as "guns handled properly" wouldn't pass as a trope but is notable as an aversion of Artistic License – Gun Safety since they are more often not handled properly.